Two years of doing something I thought I would never be able to keep up when I first started. I used to write a diary (at one point of time I even had three different diaries!) but that was different. Nobody ever read my diary, I guarded it fiercely and never let anyone so much as peek at it. The pesky younger sister was often given an earful when she was snooping around my stuff, as younger sisters are wont to (yes you are, admit it!), because I was convinced she wanted to read my diary even though it was far more likely she was just scouting around for a bar of chocolate. I found it incredibly difficult to fathom how people could blog about themselves so easily, put themselves out there just like that. I was convinced I'd never be able to do it. Then I was introduced to the wonderful world of mommy blogging and I wanted to be a part of it too. I've written about that here before; wanting to have someone who would listen, understand without judging,like I saw all the mommy bloggers doing. And so I took the first tentative steps. Without revealing my identity because I really wasn't sure about the whole thing and I really wasn't comfortable with people I knew reading what I wrote. It was incredibly comfortable to write as 'new mum on the block'. There was this strange sense of freedom. I could write what I wanted, experiment as much as I liked, be who I really wanted to be without thinking about being judged or evaluated. I miss that sometimes, writing from that safe comfort zone now that I have revealed my identity, but it couldn't have gone on forever and I knew that when I started. I'm glad I started like that though because even though 'new mum' doesn't blog anymore I still remember how I felt when I had the freedom to blog as her. And that really helped me overcome my initial hesitation at writing in a public forum and to write without any of the mental barriers I am otherwise rather good at imposing on myself.
Today morning I was out with friends and someone mentioned my blog and someone else 'oohed' and 'aahed' and said it was so cool that I had a blog, and I found myself sharing her amazement. Yes, I had a blog, me the 'guard what she writes with her life' girl, and I found that I was really proud of my little, woefully neglected in recent times, blog. Happy second birthday, blog.I'm sorry I nearly forgot your birthday and it had to take that chance conversation to remind me, that two years ago on this date I first met you. You're one of the best things that's happened to me in the last two years. And next year, I'll throw you a proper party to celebrate your birthday. For this one, lets just go out for a drink tonight, just you & I.
P.S. I wrote this post yesterday! Just had to keep it languishing in the drafts till now, because we did do a celebratory dinner for HM after all and by the time we got back it was wayyy past midnight!
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Paranoia and chocolate cake
The title for this post is fully inspired by a book I read many years ago; the delightfully titled 'Prison and Chocolate Cake
' by Nayantara Sahgal. Much like the author of the book, who came to associate chocolate cake with prison because of an incident in her childhood, over the last month and a half I've developed a morbid sort of paranoia for chocolate cake myself. It all started with a trip to Nikki's pediatrician around the same time, when I decided that waiting for the doctor in his clinic was probably not such a good idea given that Nikki, who now recognizes the doctor's clinic rather well and associates it with jabs and other unpleasant things, is given to start bawling her head off anytime we're near it. There's a cheery looking cake shop right under the doctor's clinic, specializing in chocolate cakes, so I decided to wait there instead and distract Nikki with the assorted goodies on display till the doctor showed up. It seemed like a good idea then, but thanks to a series of illnesses that saw us going back to the doctor again and again and, would you believe it, yet again and then a few more times, beyond a point that cheery cake shop just made me want to barf. There's something quite tragic about sitting in what should be, and is for other people, a happy place, a place where they come to treat themselves, when all you can think of is that next report from the pathology lab or what the doctor is going to say and whether your poor little sick child is going to have to take another dose of nasty antibiotics. Of course Nikki was quick to associate the cake shop with the doctor soon enough and the whole thing just blew up in my face, so I was back to waiting at the clinic again.
Anyway, so we've been battling a series of illnesses over the last month and a half. Nothing major, but its just been one thing after the other. Poor little Nikki was the worst hit, because she also ended up missing a lot of playschool and then when she was fully recovered she didn't want to go back. Anyway things are back on track now and life is slowly limping back to normal, even though the slightest sneeze, or the hint of a cough is enough to make me start shaking like an aspen. Oddly enough the advent of any new illness was always on a weekend. By the end of it I had become so paranoid, I had come pretty close to sitting in the prayer room fingering beads each time a fresh Friday dawned.
In the meantime, life went on as usual as it is wont to, and even though I realize I've been painting a pretty gloomy picture (you always knew where Nikki gets her drama queen genes from, didn't you?)there have been other cheerful things that have been happening as well. For one, my book finally saw the light of day, erm, bookstores and its already been around for nearly a month now. The initial response has been pretty encouraging and lets just say I don't have to spend the rest of my life sniveling under that cover anymore. You can read some of the reviews here, and I will post other updates soon. Have any of you had a chance to read it? Let me know what you think!
In other news, all this illness made me re-think my own fitness levels and I realized a drastic pulling-up-of-the-socks was in order. Too many late nights, cheese loaded pizza binges and not enough working out was simply not on anymore. Since it had mainly been Nikki and P who were ill, and I was the sole caregiver, I'd also begun to feel rather Florence Nightingale-ish what with all the late night bedside vigils and administering of medicines. With cries of 'I must be a hundred percent fit! I owe it to my family!' ringing in my mind, I threw myself on the treadmill in a bout of misplaced zeal and began to workout like I was training for a marathon. The tryst with fitness lasted only a couple of days because in my enthusiasm to nullify many weeks of living slothfully in just a few days, I ended up straining a muscle and found myself laid up in bed for a change. Thankfully both P & Nikki were well on their way to recovery by then so no major harm done, except to my ego and my dreams of being super fit. Just when I had pretty much memorized the 'how to max your treadmill workout' primer, the doctor has advised me to, in fact, stay as far away from the treadmill as possible. Oh well, at least I'll have more time to blog.
' by Nayantara Sahgal. Much like the author of the book, who came to associate chocolate cake with prison because of an incident in her childhood, over the last month and a half I've developed a morbid sort of paranoia for chocolate cake myself. It all started with a trip to Nikki's pediatrician around the same time, when I decided that waiting for the doctor in his clinic was probably not such a good idea given that Nikki, who now recognizes the doctor's clinic rather well and associates it with jabs and other unpleasant things, is given to start bawling her head off anytime we're near it. There's a cheery looking cake shop right under the doctor's clinic, specializing in chocolate cakes, so I decided to wait there instead and distract Nikki with the assorted goodies on display till the doctor showed up. It seemed like a good idea then, but thanks to a series of illnesses that saw us going back to the doctor again and again and, would you believe it, yet again and then a few more times, beyond a point that cheery cake shop just made me want to barf. There's something quite tragic about sitting in what should be, and is for other people, a happy place, a place where they come to treat themselves, when all you can think of is that next report from the pathology lab or what the doctor is going to say and whether your poor little sick child is going to have to take another dose of nasty antibiotics. Of course Nikki was quick to associate the cake shop with the doctor soon enough and the whole thing just blew up in my face, so I was back to waiting at the clinic again. Anyway, so we've been battling a series of illnesses over the last month and a half. Nothing major, but its just been one thing after the other. Poor little Nikki was the worst hit, because she also ended up missing a lot of playschool and then when she was fully recovered she didn't want to go back. Anyway things are back on track now and life is slowly limping back to normal, even though the slightest sneeze, or the hint of a cough is enough to make me start shaking like an aspen. Oddly enough the advent of any new illness was always on a weekend. By the end of it I had become so paranoid, I had come pretty close to sitting in the prayer room fingering beads each time a fresh Friday dawned.
In the meantime, life went on as usual as it is wont to, and even though I realize I've been painting a pretty gloomy picture (you always knew where Nikki gets her drama queen genes from, didn't you?)there have been other cheerful things that have been happening as well. For one, my book finally saw the light of day, erm, bookstores and its already been around for nearly a month now. The initial response has been pretty encouraging and lets just say I don't have to spend the rest of my life sniveling under that cover anymore. You can read some of the reviews here, and I will post other updates soon. Have any of you had a chance to read it? Let me know what you think!
In other news, all this illness made me re-think my own fitness levels and I realized a drastic pulling-up-of-the-socks was in order. Too many late nights, cheese loaded pizza binges and not enough working out was simply not on anymore. Since it had mainly been Nikki and P who were ill, and I was the sole caregiver, I'd also begun to feel rather Florence Nightingale-ish what with all the late night bedside vigils and administering of medicines. With cries of 'I must be a hundred percent fit! I owe it to my family!' ringing in my mind, I threw myself on the treadmill in a bout of misplaced zeal and began to workout like I was training for a marathon. The tryst with fitness lasted only a couple of days because in my enthusiasm to nullify many weeks of living slothfully in just a few days, I ended up straining a muscle and found myself laid up in bed for a change. Thankfully both P & Nikki were well on their way to recovery by then so no major harm done, except to my ego and my dreams of being super fit. Just when I had pretty much memorized the 'how to max your treadmill workout' primer, the doctor has advised me to, in fact, stay as far away from the treadmill as possible. Oh well, at least I'll have more time to blog.
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